Schwinn 2009 WL 161622 (Bankr.D.Kan.)

Economic stimulus payment that Chapter 7 debtors received postpetition was included, in its entirety, in estate.

Regardless of whether an economic stimulus payment that debtors received following the commencement of their Chapter 7 case was treated as a refund of taxes paid in the immediately preceding year or as an advance refund of taxes that the debtors had paid and were still in the process of paying for the tax year in which the petition was filed, the entire stimulus payment was included in the "property of the estate," without any need to prorate the payment between pre- and postpetition periods. The refund bore no relationship to the debtors' postpetition income or wage withholdings, but was in the nature of a payment to which the debtors were entitled on the petition date, based on the fact that, when their petition was filed, Congress had already enacted the economic stimulus legislation, and the debtors, by filing a tax return for the prior tax year, had done everything required of them in order to obtain the economic stimulus payment.

Close 2008 WL 836160 (D.Kan.)

Statement as to whether Chapter 7 case is presumptively abusive must be filed within ten days of first meeting date.

The "date of the first meeting of creditors," as that phrase is used in a bankruptcy statute requiring the United States Trustee (UST), no later than 10 days after the date of the first meeting of creditors, to file a statement indicating whether the debtor's Chapter 7 case is presumptively abusive, refers to the first meeting date, and not to the date that the meeting of creditors is finally concluded following any continuations or reschedulings by the UST. Thus, where the UST waited more than 10 days after the first meeting date to file her statement, this statement, and her subsequent motion to dismiss based on the presumption of abuse, were both untimely.

In re Kopp -

Avoidance - Debtor's catch-me-if-you-can disclosure prevented statute of limitations from running.

A Chapter 7 debtor's catch-me-if-you-can disclosure, as only a "Petition for Damages," of a state court lawsuit against him that prominently included fraudulent transfer avoidance claims was inadequate as a matter of law to permit abandonment of these fraudulent transfer claims upon entry of order closing bankruptcy case, and also prevented the statute of limitations from running on these inadequately disclosed claims when the case was closed. The trustee, upon entry of an order reopening the case, brought the fraudulent transfer avoidance claims within two years of the entry of the order for relief.


Date of decision: 2/28/08

In re Dawes, (Bkrtcy.D.Kan.)

Plans - Capital gains tax arising from postpetition sale of farm real property may be denied full payment in a Chapter 12 plan.

Under 1222(a)(2)(A) of the Bankruptcy Code, the debtors' Chapter 12 plan could treat the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS') postpetition capital gains tax claim incurred as a result of the IRS' forced sale of the debtors' farm real property as an unsecured claim not entitled to priority, limited by the condition that such treatment was allowed only if the debtors received a discharge, a Kansas bankruptcy court has held, recognizing a split of authority. The capital gains taxes at issue were not priority taxes under 507(a)(8) of the Code, and, even though the estate was not itself a separate taxable entity, the taxes were "incurred by the estate" within the meaning of 503(b)(1)(B)(i), as the tax liability arose after the creation of the debtors' estate.

Date of decision: 2/11/08

Full opinion click here.